Читать книгу Helen Adair - Becke Louis - Страница 3

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“It is time to go home, Helen.”

“Yes, madam. The sun is over the spur of the range.”

“I wish it would stop there. I hate it, don’t you?”

“No, madam, I do not hate the sun.”

“Well, you know what I mean, girl, perfectly well. I don’t mean that I hate the sun itself, but I hate to see it day after day, and feel it drying the flesh on one’s bones, and turning one’s face and hands browner and browner every day, and sapping all the life and energy out of one’s spirit. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yes, madam.”

“ ‘Yes, madam,’ and ‘No, madam!’ How irritating you are to-day, Helen! If there is anything I detest it is to have one’s questions answered in monosyllables. It grates on my nerves. It is quite bad enough to sit here and listen to those wretched cattle bells ding-donging all about us without your making matters worse.”

Helen turned her dark, beautiful face to her mistress, and moved back the sides of her coarse sun-hood with her brown, shapely hands.

“I am sorry I have annoyed you, madam.”

Mrs. Lathom, a pretty, “dolly-faced” little woman of five-and-twenty, shook her yellow curls petulantly, and then leant back against the smooth bole of the tree under which they were sitting.

“I did not say you annoyed me, but I think you are very thoughtless. I have such a lot to put up with, and no one has the slightest feeling for or sympathy with me. I declare I might as well be a convict woman for all the consideration that is shown me.”

The face of the girl to whom she spoke flushed deeply, then suddenly paled. But Mrs. Lathom took no heed. Her own petty troubles were far too important to her to allow what she called her mind to consider the effect of her ceaseless and rambling chatter. For a moment or two, however, she remained silent, immersed in the study of two beautiful white hands, covered with an unnecessary display of rings, and a frown puckered her fair brow as she discerned a tiny freckle on one of her knuckles.

“Why did you not remind me to put on my gloves, Helen? My hands will be positively hideous soon, with these detestable freckles, and stings from sandflies and mosquitoes.”

“I did remind you, madam,” replied the girl in the same listlessly-respectful monotone; “the sandflies have been very troublesome lately. That is why the cattle and horses keep shaking their bells so much. The sandflies get inside their ears.”

“Bother the cattle and horses! Why can’t they get rid of them in some other way than by clanging their horrible bells?”

Something like the faint flicker of a smile moved the girl’s lips—“They do try very hard, madam. There are always a number of them standing in the creek with only their heads out of the water. They stay there sometimes for many hours together. But the poor horses suffer most.”

“What is the earthly use of telling me such silly things? I can’t stand up to my chin in the creek all day, can I? But I might as well do that as live in this disgusting place. It’s too bad of the Governor to send Captain Lathom here when he knows I am not strong.”

The patient, wearied listener made no reply. For six months past—ever since she had come to Waringa Creek township with Captain and Mrs. Lathom—she had heard the same complaint almost daily, sometimes made with sullen anger to Lathom himself, sometimes to the few visitors who came to the house, and always to Helen herself.

“Don’t you hate the place?” asked Mrs. Lathom presently, in a more amiable though condescending tone to the girl. “Would you not be delighted to go back to Sydney again, instead of living in this wretched bush?” She spoke with assumed carelessness, but the girl, who could sometimes read her shallow mind as if she were a child of ten, knew well that behind the apparently simple question there lay a motive.

“I do not like the place, madam, but I do not hate it.”

“But you would like to go back to Sydney?” And Mrs. Lathom looked at her eagerly.

“No, madam, I should not.”

“You silly girl. Why not?” she persisted.

“I do not like the bush, madam,” was the cold reply, “but I like it better than I do Sydney.”

“Then you must make it your business to like Sydney,” said Mrs. Lathom; and her voice grew sharp. “I will not put up with likes or dislikes from—from——”

“From a convict, madam.”

“I did not say that. You are very rude to interrupt me when I am speaking, especially when I wish to confer a favour on you. But you must remember your position.”

“I can never forget it.”

The words were uttered with a quiet dignity, and the dark eyes met Mrs. Lathom’s so steadily, that she felt slightly uncomfortable.

“Well, I’m sure I’m very good to you, Helen, and have done a great deal for you in many ways.”

“For the kindnesses I have received from you, madam, I am grateful,” the girl answered slowly, though her whole passionate nature was in revolt when she thought of the daily bitterness and ignominies heaped upon her by the thoughtless, selfish, and shallow-brained creature who sat before her languidly fanning her face with a dainty Indian fan. But distinct as was her emphasis on the word “kindnesses” Mrs. Lathom did not detect it.

“Now, Helen,” she went on, “as you have no doubt seen, Captain Lathom is very peculiar in his ways, and ... but he really is very slow to understand things. But he has quite a high opinion of you—quite, I assure you. In fact, he has said so distinctly.”

“Captain Lathom has always been most kind and considerate to all the convicts under his care, madam.”

“Quite so; and I am glad you appreciate it, but then, of course, you are much superior to the—the——”

“Other convict women, madam.”

“Exactly. And, of course, when you were assigned to us, I noticed that at once, and told Captain Lathom that I was sure, whatever your past character had been, you were quite superior in your manners and looks to the rest of the unfortunate creatures who came out in the Julia.”

“I thank you, madam;” and the girl’s hands clenched together in her lap as she bent her head lower, and set her teeth hard.

“Yes, indeed,” resumed Mrs. Lathom complacently, “and Captain Lathom at my especial request, and on account of my interest in you, managed to secure your assignment to us, although the Governor, who is an extremely vulgar man, in spite of his being a soldier and a supposed gentleman, was very averse to military officers having female convicts assigned to them as servants. Now, I am sure you feel grateful.”

“I am grateful to Captain Lathom. He has made me feel that I am still a human being, and not a brute beast.” Her dreary monotone did not change, though her frame was quivering from head to foot.

“How very strangely you talk, Helen. I am sure I do not consider you a ‘brute beast.’ Quite the reverse; and I am sure I have shown it on many occasions. Have I not?”

No answer came from the girl beyond a mute inclination of the bowed head.

“Now, as I have said—or did I not say so? I quite forget, you interrupt me so—Captain Lathom really does not understand that I am ill—really ill—and thinks that there is no necessity for me to return to Sydney, when Dr. Haldane is ‘only thirty miles away’—as if thirty miles were thirty yards! And I detest Dr. Haldane, with his bushy whiskers, and his horribly coarse voice, and vulgar manners, like all those East India Company men;” and she shuddered affectedly, and looked at her companion’s face. It betrayed neither interest nor sympathy.

“Well, as I told you, Helen, Captain Lathom has a very high opinion of you, for, of course, he has not failed to see how very attentive you are to me. And he thinks that you are absolutely truthful. Indeed he has said as much.”

“Captain Lathom has always been most kind and generous to me, madam. It is not in his nature to be otherwise to any one. Even the men in the chain gang know that.”

“The horrid creatures! Please don’t talk about them. One of them threw a hammer at him once and tried to kill him, and yet he was so foolish as to overlook it instead of having the man sentenced to two hundred and fifty lashes—the minimum penalty.”

The girl made no answer. She knew the story, and knew how the kindly-hearted Lathom, and the equally compassionate Surgeon Haldane had represented to the authorities that Convict No. —— was mentally deranged, as was indeed the case, and so saved the unfortunate wretch a fearful punishment.

“As you say, he is very considerate and kind, Helen; and gives such a lot of attention to his official duties. But—I am sure I can trust you, can I not?”

“I am a convict, madam.”

“How tiresome you are!” and Mrs. Lathom’s blue eyes flashed angrily; then in another moment she smiled sweetly.

“I want you to do something for me, Helen. I will reward you well for it.”

“I do not wish for any reward, madam. I shall be glad to serve you if it lies in my power to do so.”

“How nicely you speak! Well, you can serve me. I want you to tell Captain Lathom that you are sure I am not at all strong, and ought to go away to Sydney. He is so strong himself that he cannot understand any one being weak and ill. And he would think seriously of it if you told him.”

The darkening shadows of the day hid the smile of contempt on the girl’s face. “It would be great presumption on my part, madam, to speak to Captain Lathom on such a subject as your health.”

“Of course it would—if I did not tell you to do so. But I wish you to do so.”

“I will speak to him, madam.”

“That is right. I am sure you are a sensible girl, and will know exactly what to say. Now let us return to the house.”

They walked slowly along the narrow, winding and dusty path that led from Captain Lathom’s house to the bank of Waringa Creek. On each side of them was an endless vista of grey gum-trees, from the smooth, round boles of which hung strips and patches of russet-hued bark, cracked and blistered by the summer sun. Presently they came to the outer paddock, a wide, grassless expanse of fifty acres, enclosed in a rough three-railed fence of gum slabs, and entered by slip-rails. The girl stepped before her mistress, and lowered one end of the heavy rails for her mistress to step over; then again fell behind to her usual distance.

Within the larger paddock was a smaller one, in which stood Captain Lathom’s quarters and those of the five-and-twenty soldiers who formed the convict guard. Here, although the settlement had only been formed two years before, some cultivation had been effected, though the intense summer heat had given all the vegetation a parched-up appearance. A patch of an acre of maize, now fully ripened, and waiting to be pulled, still showed some vestige of green, and in and among the long row of stalks great grey and yellow pumpkins lay baking in the sun; beyond this, and directly in front of the house itself, was a flower garden—Helen’s particular care, and her solace and pleasure whenever she could escape from an almost continuous attendance on “the captain’s lady.”

The house itself was of good size and neat appearance. It was built of freestone hewn by convict hands from the hated quarries situated on the spur of the range, four miles away from the settlement. The roof was of shingles, and though the building was but of one storey, the rooms were spacious, lofty, and cool, for a wide verandah encompassed it on four sides, and one end was entirely covered in with the dense dark green foliage of a passion-fruit vine, trained from post to post. About a hundred yards away from the commandant’s dwelling was that of his second in command, Lieutenant Willet; it was merely a two-roomed cottage, but solidly built of stone. In a line with the officers’ houses were the soldiers’ quarters—a rough, slabbed building with a bark roof—and the prisoners’ “barracks,” a low, long, strongly built stone edifice with barred windows and a massive door, stood within a stone’s throw of it.

Without the bounds of the “official,” or rather military, portion of the settlement was the township, which consisted of a determined attempt at a long and perfectly straight street, on either side of which were the houses and stores of free settlers, and some emancipated convicts. One end of the street touched the bank of Waringa Creek, where a wharf had been built; the other was lost in a maze of giant gum-tree stumps not yet uprooted from the soil, and which were to be seen extending right up to the edge of the bush, the said “bush” being a dense forest of huge blue gum, “blackbutt,” and tallow-wood trees, interspersed with a thick undergrowth of smaller trees, for the “street” followed the trend of the creek, and the soil was rich and moist from the thick alluvial deposit left upon it almost every year when the creek was in flood and overflowed its banks.

“The captain’s lady,” as the people of Waringa called Mrs. Lathom, stepped languidly up on the verandah, followed by Helen, and seated herself in a cane lounge placed near one of the green-painted French lights which opened into the dining-room.

“Go and see why the lamps are not lit,” she said pettishly to Helen. “I hate coming into the house at dusk and finding it in darkness.”

The girl stepped silently inside, and in a few minutes the dining-room lamp was lit and sent a soft glow of light through the windows out upon the garden. Mrs. Lathom lay back in the lounge, her hands clasped behind her head. She was thinking of her husband, and her mouth hardened. What if he again refused her? He had better not, she thought. He was so dense at seeing things. Well, he would have to understand that she was not going to waste her days in such a wretched spot as Waringa Creek, when she could be in Sydney enjoying herself. She was sick to death of his plans and schemes for the improvement of the settlement—frittering away his time when he could return to Sydney if he but chose to ask to be transferred. How delightful it would be to be back in Sydney once more and hear her name again—“the beautiful Mrs. Lathom,” “Lathom’s pretty wife is coming,” “I am taking Mrs. Lathom for a ride,” “you looked simply lovely last night”! She smiled to herself, and then wondered what Lieutenant Maurice Wray would say to her when she next met him.

“I’ll write to him to-night, and tell him to expect me,” she said aloud.

“When do you wish dinner, ma’am?” said a rough-looking, coarse-faced woman, coming to the door.

“When Captain Lathom returns—no matter how late it is. Send some one to tell Sergeant Rush that I wish to see him. And tell Helen to come to me.”

Helen was the first to arrive.

“You need not stay in, Helen,” she said, with unusual graciousness. “Perhaps you would like to walk down to the creek and see if the boat is coming. I do not expect Captain Lathom will be here till nine o’clock, and I know you are fond of the creek. I shall write a letter or two.”

Helen thanked her, and at once put on her hood and went out. She loved to sit on the river bank in the dusk of the evening and listen to the sounds of the night, away from the hateful surroundings of the grim and squalid settlement.

Presently a heavy footstep sounded on the verandah, and Sergeant Rush stood before the lady and saluted.

“Good evening, Sergeant. I want to know if there is any one leaving here for Newcastle to-morrow.”

“Yes, ma’am. One of the Tucker boys is going there by road to try and buy some sugar. There is a Dutch ship just arrived from Batavia with a full cargo.”

“Then tell him to call and see me. I want some letters posted for me.”

“Yes, ma’am;” and again the soldier saluted, and then strode off to his quarters.

“Another letter for Mr. Maurice Wray, I’ll be bound,” said Sergeant Rush to himself. “I’d give a month’s pay to see her caught.”